


Breeding Thorns

by Snake (Fatality145)



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: High Chaos, M/M, vomits out angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:31:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fatality145/pseuds/Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>
    <br/>
    <span class="small">(Post High-Chaos [Bad] Ending)</span>
    <br/>
  </i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>There was no sympathy, yet he was so admirable, just so, as it always was. It was all… twistedly delightful, whether at its end or not. This was moulded fate in pure motion, a conclusion showing the greatest pain for one, and the greatest amusement for another.</i></p><p> </p><p>  </p><p> </p><p>  <i>                “…The demons that refuse to let you go, do you think that they’ll leave with empty hands, Corvo?”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Breeding Thorns

**Author's Note:**

> i don't like this too much but i haven't posted for a while,  
> here

Waves curled in dark fragments, crashing against a hull almost more seaweed than wood, hardened and solidified over years of hardships, seared portions replaced and less weathered by the sea spray which would hang in motion before meeting with the collective again and be swept away once more.

 

                The water was like velvet swathed over his skin, akin temperature, ice cold, unforgiving, dead flesh and salt which kept it buoyant, shadows beneath the surface that the dark light above could not pierce.  The moon wavered behind the clouds as though they cried like the whales in the deep, their hides torn and harpooned into shreds, blood painting black liquid.

 

                It was pale for him through eyes that saw everything, the Void clinging to his shoulders, the energy trails of beings that had past, each minutely different from the other, a different scent or strength and lustre so he could tell them apart as his fingertips traced the paths. There was one that was so familiar he didn’t have to think as he followed it, like copper and steel on his forked tongue, roughness under the touch that felt as though, if it tried hard enough, it would scratch everything away. It wouldn’t get close, though.

 

                Waterlogged wood easily gave way to him, the shadows in the hull thickening as he shifted through, shivers running down the spines of the crewmen he past, the steps creaking, though with no sound of foot falls, as he climbed to the quarters.

 

                The game was too easy for him to just play, he found, the darkness condensing, head to heeled boot, sea water running off of his form like he were wax as he pushed open the door before him. A back was to him, pressed into a corner in a small cot, azures and ambers alighting the otherwise pitch black room with each step he took closer, shadows ebbing into the floor beneath his feet.

 

                Tendrils twisted out from his fingers as he leaned over, the pressure of his knee on the side of the bed receiving no reaction, feeling the bare heat permeating up from under his hand. He replaced the touch with brushes of his lips over the terse material, inhaling the scent. If pain had a smell, he was experiencing it, heady and sore, slow but thick, pausing with his mouth poised above the scant amount of throat exposed.

 

                “…Am I not finished?” A small voice asked of him, gruff, but still quiet, the shadows deliberately rec oiling back into his skin.  
  
                “That is something that you would have to answer me, dear Corvo,” The Outsider returned, the body shifting beneath him. He stood back, folding his arms over his chest, Corvo moving in turn and sitting up.

 

                His shoulders were hunched over, dark hair in his face, clothes smattered in blood – some his own, some not – and dried whale oil, the dirt and grime he had accumulated and not yet washed off. He was haggard, completely, the grit on his sullen face broken only by stark streaks that ran down from his dull eyes to his jaw.

 

                Corvo never was a loud person, in anything that he did; it was always kept in, just beneath the skin, but he had cried, with his teeth sunk into his lip almost hard enough to tear it, nails digging into his palms. He attended the burial days late only because he had to, both of his faces a stain, both his faces those that killed the Empresses. Inadvertently or not, the blood was on his hands, now, and the cruor wouldn’t wash away.

 

                “A city that is quickly dying from the inside out, a bloated corpse about to burst with maggots - they’re going to praise liars and cheats, after you’ve left.” The Outsider tipped his head, murmuring to him.

 

                Through the Void, he could hear all the words Corvo wanted to say, things that almost tripped off his tongue before he thought about it a second time. Always was he careful about what he said, especially in the half-company of the shade.

 

                “I don’t care,” He eventually answered. His voice was almost swallowed by the crash of the waves, but that sound was lost on the Outsider, as was the vertigo which swayed the ship back and forth. He could hear his breathing, shallow and short and quiet, broken in places, listening to his pulse which filled the room.

 

                “Did Dunwall only matter to you when it housed the life you swore to protect?”

 

                Corvo didn’t reply, not straight away, his cut and calloused fingers curling into the stiff covers which had pooled around his waist. Perhaps it was. Perhaps that was the only reason. Gristol wasn’t his home, not anymore.

 

                “And now you’re running away from the chaos you left in your wake. It _is_ up to you to decide how to hide or flee,” The Outsider continued.

 

                “Not running--…” His voice was uncharacteristically gravelled, letting out a faint exhale, “I’m… I’m not running,” Each of the words faltered as he said them, teeth at his lip again, nails sinking into the covers rather than his skin.

 

                “No… This isn’t running, this is something else entirely.” Lifting a hand, holding his elbow with the other, the Outsider traced his jaw with slender fingers, “Now you’re looking for something, but what, I wonder?”

 

                There was no sympathy, yet he was so admirable, just _so_ , as it always was. It was all… twistedly delightful, whether at its end or not. This was moulded fate in pure motion, a conclusion showing the greatest pain for one, and the greatest amusement for another.

 

                “…The demons that refuse to let you go, do you think that they’ll leave with empty hands, Corvo?”

 

                A bitter laugh burst by the assassin’s lips, sudden, and he lifted a hand to his face, rubbing over his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think there’s anything left,” It might have been dramatic, but it might as well have been true. He had nothing left to lose, anymore. It was all stripped away as blood was from a blade sharper than a razor.

 

                “There is _always_ something more to lose,”

 

                Corvo looked back at him, then, hair in his face, stuck to the corners of his lips. For someone who knew impossible, even that may be too far, and yet, perhaps for the best, all things considered. Of course he’d thought about it. One _last_ thing to lose, nothing of value, he believed. The near perpetual headache that he’d gained as he climbed aboard the ship heightened as the Outsider spoke again:

 

                “I would not catch you,” It was said as though it was a fact, with neither malice nor joviality, despite the spectre not quite being sure if it was. There was never an end, not really, and he didn’t want one. His claws were sunk in and he would bleed him dry. He hadn’t done that with another, before, opting instead to just stop watching when it became mundane, to stop following the glowing paths, ignoring them, but Corvo did things to him, much to his distain, he would find. “Escaping could be such a movement, but leaving to Serkonos won’t make it go away, you know that,”

 

                “Then what _would_?” Corvo snapped back, each word separate. His throat was dry, feeling no need or desire to consume anything to sate, unless it was keeping him awake, in which he would, with hopes that maybe those demons would be preoccupied with something else.

 

                It was bittersweet severity as the Outsider softly narrowed his eyes, the shadows creeping from his metaphysical form again. “I can’t tell you that,”

 

                “Can’t, or won’t?”

 

                That almost brought a half smirk to his lips. It seemed that desperation brought out the bite in the otherwise soft spoken assassin. The human design, how fickle and betraying when its needed most, falling away from beneath his feet as everything else had, tearing him apart rather than being the strings that kept him together.

 

                “I _can’t_.” It wasn’t as though the Outsider doubted himself, he just knew that those two often blurred together, a kind of grey area that even he could not distinguish. There was nothing he could tell Corvo. These things bled into the skin deeper than the brands he left, sinking into the bone and sinew, a bludgeon to the brainstem. And, even if he had something, he likely wouldn’t have told him, regardless. It was always better for them to figure it out, even now.

 

                “…Why are you even here?” He’d been told about how the Outsider would abandon those that were most devoted to him, simply because they became boring, no longer delving into their dreams, no longer leaving ice burns on their flesh from scant touches. The ones on his body were far past feeling. Corvo almost wished they weren’t there at all, much like the mark on the back of his palm.

 

                “Call it keeping tabs,” The Outsider replied. After the end, there was only so much one could do. Corvo was so vulnerable, though his skin was like steel, tempered by a lust that was only quenched when it was too late, a falter in his fingers around the hilt of his blade, a _choke_ that kept him stilled when everything hung in the balance.

 

                It was just interesting, painfully so, something so sinister it was impossible to look away. There were so many ways in which Corvo could have gotten what he wanted, what his resolve was set to, his purpose, above all else, and he had let it go.

 

                "Your life could be so much better, now that everything is through... I have to wonder, that maybe you _let_ the Empress fall,"

 

                The Void roiled and shuddered through him, the room instantly much smaller as rough hands met his shoulders, his back pressed to a rotten wall, the unearthly glow of the brand making him seem even more gaunt. The same glow reflected off the minute moisture which prickled the corners of Corvo’s eyes.

 

                Extreme emotions usually steeled, shoved back behind floodgates of personal armour, dents showed after beatings, the metal already worn and brittle, then, his warm breath spreading over the shade at the proximity. If he pressed any harder, he would be pushing into displaced shadows, the pads of his fingers creasing clothes.

 

                “Don’t… Just—“ Squeezing his eyes shut, one of those tears crept down the bridge of his nose, hanging on the tip. They were bitter and stinging, something he didn’t deserve, or, rather, he did, tenfold. For something that was his _fault_ , he didn’t deserve to stay quiet, to stay in the background as the aftermath rolled out before him, yet he could not see it, repressing what was in front of his eyes, an involuntary defence mechanism to keep him just _okay_. “… _Don’t_.” The spite was much weaker.

 

                It may not have been for him, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want it, selfish of things out of his reach. “Just pull me out,”

 

                He didn’t meet the Outsider’s sight, couldn’t, the spectre knew, watching the light shake of his jaw as he clenched his teeth behind pressed lips.

 

                “Pull you out?” He questioned.

 

                “Like all those other times. I know you can.”

 

                All those other times, when everything would slow to a stop, and all that existed would cease, becoming something else, the brine in his mouth that would threaten to drown him, though never would. The simplicity of the nothingness was a kind of comfort he’d grown used to, unsure of why, at the time, but now he almost begged for it. It was a release, ripping away the tethers which bound him, if only for a short while, in the spider web home of another where his only responsibility was not falling off an edge into an endless abyss. He would welcome that emptiness, now, needed it.

 

                “I can’t.” The Outsider repeated.

 

                “Can’t, or won’t?” Corvo reiterated, the tremble moving to his fingers.

 

                The Void was thick, like a discoloured sludge, between them, the pity in it completely lost on him. Never once had he brought the assassin into his domain for Corvo’s benefit, nor had he ever laid his fingers upon his face so he could feel the comfort of touch. It was a singular desire, a fascination and greed for the heat that would melt into his frozen skin, watching the reaction as he would breathe out over the crux of his jaw or into the dip of his pelvis. He would note how the skin would crawl into gooseflesh as he would trace scars, and then leave some of his own. But that warmth was gone now. Corvo was just as cold as he was.

 

                “Won’t.”

 

                Corvo exhaled the breath he was holding, the tightness leaving his fingers around the Outsider’s shoulders, the flare fading from the back of his hand. There was no use in pretending, but he would try.

 

                “…Won’t you just say that you’re sorry? _Once_?”

 

                “I’m _sorry_.”

 

                There was no sincerity in the Outsider’s voice. 

**Author's Note:**

> ha ahahahahjmdjdsjhjhsjdcjhxxhc heLP ollies out into the void later


End file.
